The networked micro-decision context: a new lens on transformative urban governance

(2023) 5:9 Long et al. Urban Transformations https://doi.org/10.1186/s42854-023-00054-y PERSPECTIVE Urban Transformations Open Access The networked micro‑decision context: a new lens on transformative urban governance Le Anh Nguyen Long1,2* , Rachel M. Krause3, Gwen Arnold4, Ryan Swanson4 and S. Mohsen Fatemi3 *Correspondence: 1 Department of Public Administration, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands 2 Faculty of Behavioural Management and Social Sciences, Cubicus Building, Room C‑326, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522, NB, Enschede, The Netherlands 3 School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA 4 Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA, USA Abstract Recent large-scale societal disruptions, from the COVID-19 pandemic to intensifying wildfires and weather events, reveal the importance of transforming governance systems so they can address complex, transboundary, and rapidly evolving crises. Yet current knowledge of the decision-making dynamics that yield transformative governance remains scant. Studies typically focus on the aggregate outputs of government decisions, while overlooking their micro-level underpinnings. This is a key oversight because drivers of policy change, such as learning or competition, are prosecuted by people rather than organizations. We respond to this knowledge gap by introducing a new analytical lens for understanding policymaking, aimed at uncovering how characteristics of decision-makers and the structure of their relationships affect their likelihood of effectuating transformative policy responses. This perspective emphasizes the need for a more dynamic and relational view on urban governance in the context of transformation. Highlights 1. Policy-makers’ attributes and social networks both shape urban transformative capacity. 2. A city’s transformative capacity may be higher when actors involved in decisionmaking are more diverse. 3. Diversity spurs creativity and innovation by improving access to knowledge, learning opportunities, and skills. 4. Relationship quality, more specifically mutual trust, may help explain why some cities transform and others don’t. 5. Facilitative leadership is key in safeguarding trust and ensuring diversity among decisionmakers. Keywords: Urban transformation, Decision-making, Networks, Governance, Policy learning © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Long et al. Urban Transformations (2023) 5:9 Policy and practice recommendations 1. Invest in understanding the perspectives of key actors who make micro-level decisions on how cities respond to climate events and the relationships among these actors. 2. Facilitate transformative governance by using careful institutional design that increases diversity among decision-makers. 3. “Honest brokers” should focus on building and leveraging fungibility and trust as they pursue transformation in multi-stakeholder governance networks. Introduction The increasing frequency and severity of societal disruptions diminish governments’ capacities to effectively serve their constituents. Disruptions render previous ways of operating or delivering services ineffective and threaten social well-being (Millar et al. 2018). They thereby put into focus factors which raise the vulnerability of societies, or specific societal groups. Existing policies and practices are fast becoming untenable in the face of disruptions from compounding technological, environmental, and social shocks (Phillips et al 2020; Head and Alford 2015). Governmental responses lie along a continuum, from doing nothing to engaging in transformative change that fundamentally alters a system (Moser and Ekstrom 2010; O’Brien 2012; Marshall et al. 2012; Rosenzweig and Solecki 2014). Cascading disruptions reveal the limits of prevailing systems (Millar et al. 2018). They simultaneously highlight the need for transformative urban governance and necessitate its emergence. Transformations require social, technological, and policy innovations adopted and realized across different systemic, geographic, and temporal scales. While a variety of aims motivate calls for transformative governance, climate change and its many associated disruptions have assumed a particular urgency in driving efforts to fundamentally and intentionally alter how governing systems function. Cities are often ground zero for climate -change-related disruption and response. They contribute as much as 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Boussalis et al. 2018; Hunt and Watkiss 2011) and their residents are vulnerable to many climate changerelated hazards (Hobbie and Grimm 2020), both from slow-onset disasters such as drought and rapid-onset disasters like flash floods. Moreover, urban systems are typically characterized by powerful interdependencies and tight coupling, such that a single hazardous event can trigger cascading disruptions (e.g., infrastructure damage leading to water and power shortages) (Perrow 2000). At the same time, cities are a vanguard of climate protection policy (Krause et al. 2021; Smeds and Acuto 2018; Watts 2017) and local control over land use, zoning, and building standards position them to develop meaningful initiatives (Einstein et al 2020; Boussalis et al 2018). New technologies, knowledge-sharing networks, and increasing wealth concentrations in urban centers likewise enable cities to act as a key locus for addressing climate change (Nguyen Long and Krause 2021; Acuto 2016). Cities are acting to protect their residents and infrastructure from sudden shocks resulting from an unpredictable Page 2 of 13 Long et al. Urban Transformations (2023) 5:9 and changing climate. Not all cities, however, are confronting climate change with equal vigor (Yeganeh et al. 2020; Hughes 2017). Rather than transform, some aim at preserving old systems. Considerable effort has been put into identifying the factors that facilitate municipal climate leadership and innovation. For example, the so called ‘Lighthouse Cities’ in the European Union, which are on the cutting edge of climate and energy innovation, are typically characterized as h (...truncated)